Author: DVO

One of our problems today is that we are trying to understand ourselves and our lives without the benefit of a theology of original sin. We would like to believe that we can be morally whole all by ourselves, that it is morbid to ever refer to oneself as “a wretch,” that a finished symphony can be had in this life (if only we are lucky enough or work hard enough at it), and that our efforts at changing the world need focus only on converting systems and never on purging personal fault. We would like to live our lives as if … as if selfishness and greed are simple learned behaviors; as if somewhere there are functional families, churches, and institutions, and our own are anomalies; and as if, in the end, we could save ourselves without God. This philosophy of life tries to convince us that we can adequately explain human nature and that there is sufficient reason to give ourselves away to the community in altruism without referencing a personal God and a theology of original sin. My parents had a good working theology of original sin. They weren’t so naive as to take the story of Adam and Eve and the apple literally, but they did believe that this story contained a profound, archetypal truth both about history and ourselves. What did they believe? They believed that because Adam and Eve “ate the apple” history and our lives are now marked by certain things. For them, because of this primordial event, whatever it was, individually and collectively, we find ourselves helpless to save ourselves; only grace from outside can help us. Second, because of this initial “fall,” none of us is as morally whole as we would like to think we are in our more inflated moments. Rather, if we are honest, we all know the truth of Paul’s lament in the Epistle to the Romans: “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Finally, too, because of this primordial event, we live outside of the garden of Eden, in a world that is less than perfect, and we can never find in this life a full, consummated symphony but rather are “weeping in a valley of tears.” For my mum and dad, there was an adequate explanation for things: Adam and Eve “ate an apple”, whatever that meant, and since then, we have found ourselves outside of the garden of paradise, in a valley of tears, un-whole, grieving something long lost, deeply in need of both collective and personal healing, but still standing gratefully before a gracious, ultimate power, the saving grace of God. That makes more sense than anything else I’ve read lately.[1]

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[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s reflection, “Needed: A Theology of Original Sin,” August 1999.

At the risk of being simplistic, I want to relate comments from a very old and wise priest I met during my doctoral studies. He says something about prayer in a very simple way. “Prayer isn’t easy because we’re always tired, distracted, busy, bored, and caught up in so many things that it’s hard to find the time and energy to center ourselves on God for some moments. So, this is what I do: No matter what my day is like, no matter what’s on my mind, no matter what my distractions and temptations are, I am faithful to this: Once a day I pray the Our Father as best I can from where I am at that moment. Inside of everything that’s going on inside me and around me that day, I pray the Our Father, asking God to hear me from inside of all the distractions and temptations that are besetting me. It’s the best I can do. Maybe it’s a bare minimum and I should do more and should try to concentrate harder, but at least I do that. And sometimes it’s all I can do, but I do it every day, as best I can. It’s the prayer Jesus told us to pray.” His words might sound simplistic and minimalistic. Indeed, the Catholic Church challenges us to make the Eucharist the center of our prayer lives and to make a daily habit of meditation and private prayer. As well, many classical spiritual writers tell us that we should set aside an hour every day for private prayer, and many contemporary spiritual writers challenge us to daily practice centering prayer or some other form of contemplative prayer. Well, none of this goes against what he so humbly shared. He would be the first to agree that the Eucharist should be the center of our prayer lives, and he would agree as well with both the classical spiritual writers who advise an hour of private prayer a day, and the contemporary authors who challenge us to do some form of contemplative prayer daily, or at least habitually. But he would say this: At one of those times in the day (ideally at the Eucharist or while praying the Office of the Church but at least sometime during your day), when you’re saying the Our Father, pray it with as much sincerity and focus as you can muster at the moment (“as best you can”) and know that, no matter your distractions at the moment, it’s what God is asking from you. And it’s enough.[1]

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[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s reflection, “This is How You Pray When You Are Tired or Busy” May 2024.

In brief, as Christians, we are given a non-negotiable mandate to reach out to the poor with compassion and justice. Moreover, this mandate is just as non-negotiable as keeping the Ten Commandments, as is clear almost everywhere in Scripture. Here is the essence of that mandate:

• The great Jewish prophets coined this mantra: “The quality of your faith will be judged by the quality of justice in the land; and the quality of justice in the land will always be judged by how ‘widows, orphans, and strangers’ (biblical code for the weakest and most vulnerable groups in a society) are doing while you are alive.”
• Jesus not only ratifies this; he deepens it, identifying his very person with the poor.  (“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me”). He tells us that we will be judged for eternal life on the basis of how we treated the poor.
• Moreover, in both Testaments in the Bible, this is particularly true regarding how we treat foreigners, strangers, and immigrants. How we treat them is how we are in fact treating Jesus.
• Note that Jesus defines his mission with these words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” Hence, any teaching, preaching, or government policy that is not good news for the poor may not cloak itself with either Jesus or the Gospel.
• All people are obliged to come to the relief of the poor.
• The condemnation of injustice is a non-negotiable aspect of our discipleship.
• In all situations where there is injustice, unfairness, oppression, grinding poverty, God is not neutral. Rather God wants action against everything and everyone who deals injustice and death.

These principles are so very strong that it is easy to believe that Jesus can’t really be asking this of us. Indeed, if taken seriously, these principles would radically disrupt our lives and the social order. It would no longer be business as usual. Whether or not this upsets our security and comfort, God is always on the underside of history, on the side of the poor.[1]

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[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s reflection, “This is non-negotiable as a Christian: Help the poor, vulnerable” February 2025.

Cosmologists today tell us that the universe has no single center. Its center is everywhere, every place, every planet, every city, every species, and every person. But we already know this. Faith tells us that what ultimately defines us and gives us our identity and energy is the image and likeness of God in us. We are God’s blessed ones, masters of creation, special to God and special within creation. Deep down, whether we admit it or not, we each nurse the secret of being special. In our daily lives that often causes more heartaches than it solves. It is not easy to live out our blessed, special status when, most of the time, everything around us belies that we are special. But, while over-inflated egos do cause their share of heartaches, it is a still an unhealthy temptation to believe that we are not blessed simply because life finds us one-among-six-billion-others, struggling, and seemingly not special in any way. Faith tells the true story: We are, all of us, made in God’s image and likeness, blessed, and our private secret that we are special is in fact the deepest truth. I can be empty, have nothing, and still be God’s blessed one! Being blessed and special is not dependent upon how full or empty my life is at a given moment. I can be a big nobody and still be God’s blessed one. Blessedness doesn’t depend upon fame, on being a household name. Our blessedness is not predicated on having a VIP elevator, or on having any special privileges that set us apart from others. We are God’s blessed ones, even when we find ourselves riding the city buses. And it is good to remember, namely, that we are God’s special, blessed sons and daughters, even when we lives seem empty, anonymous, and devoid of any special privileges because then we won’t forever be putting God and our restless hearts to the test, demanding more than ordinary life can give us.[1]

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[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s reflection, “Our Three Temptations,” July 2007.

I work and move within church circles and find that most of the people I meet there are honest, committed, and for the most part radiate their faith positively. Most church-goers aren’t hypocrites. What I do find disturbing within church circles though is that too many of us can be bitter, angry, mean-spirited, and judgmental, especially in terms of the very values that we hold most dear. It was Henri Nouwen who first highlighted this, commenting with sadness that many of the really angry, bitter, and ideologically-driven people he knew he had met inside of church circles and places of ministry.  Within church circles, it sometimes seems, everyone is angry about something.  Moreover, within church circles, it is all too easy to rationalize our anger in the name of prophecy, as a healthy passion for truth and morals. The logic works this way: Because I am sincerely concerned about an important moral, ecclesial, or justice issue, I can excuse a certain amount of neurosis, anger, elitism, and negative judgment, because I can rationalize that my cause, dogmatic or moral, is so important that it justifies my mean spirit: I need to be this angry and harsh because this is such an important truth! Don’t get me wrong: Truth is not relative, moral issues are important, and right truth and proper morals, like kingdoms under perpetual siege, need to be defended. Not all moral judgments are created equal, neither are all churches. But the truth of that doesn’t trump everything else or give us an excuse to rationalize our anger. We must defend truth, defend those who cannot defend themselves, and be solid in the traditions of our own churches. But right truth and right morals don’t necessarily make us disciples of Jesus. What does? What makes us genuine disciples of Jesus is living inside his Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and this is not something abstract and vague. We live inside of the Holy Spirit when our lives are characterized by charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, longsuffering, constancy, faith, gentleness, and chastity. If these do not characterize our lives, we should not nurse the illusion that we are inside of God’s Spirit, irrespective of our passion for truth, dogma, or justice. As T.S. Eliot once said: The last temptation that’s the greatest treason is to do the right thing for the wrong reason.[1]

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[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s reflection, “Following Jesus According to the Letter or Spirit?” February 2011.

There are three vital penitential practices associated with the liturgical time of Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. All three, based in Scripture and early Christian tradition, are interconnected. They offer the opportunity to realign all our relationships in a rightful manner. Prayer directs us to conversion in our relationship to God. Almsgiving expresses itself in compassion towards our neighbor. Fasting focuses us on ourselves. It is essential to rescue fasting from misunderstanding and to rediscover its value for spiritual restoration. Fasting is a powerful penitential practice that holds the same opportunity for transformation as almsgiving and prayer. Distinguishing religious fasting from medical fasting is essential. Fasting for medical reasons is a good in itself: purging ourselves of toxins, readying us for various procedures or treatments, dieting to improve our health or lose weight all have their benefits. Religious fasting holds a different meaning. Charles Murphy, in his book, The Spirituality of Fasting writes that we practice religious fasting for other purposes: “religious fasting is an act of humility before God, a penitential expression of our need for conversion from sin and selfishness. Its aim is nothing less than becoming more loving persons, loving God above all and our neighbor as ourselves. The purpose is the transformation of our total being: mind, body, spirit.” I believe rediscovering the practice of fasting requires two basic spiritual orientations or attitudes. First, it is foreign to biblical anthropology to objectify or instrumentalize the human body. The purpose of religious fasting is not to dominate or break our body into shape by punishing ourselves. It is the act of humbling ourselves before God as we marvel at God’s love for us as we implore: “Oh God, help me to believe the truth about myself, no matter how beautiful it is!” Second, as a spiritual orientation, we want to notice the subtle forms of pride that insinuate themselves into penitential practices such as fasting. It would defeat the purpose of our religious practice to behave as if we can bend God’s will to our own. It gives us the illusion we can control God and the outcomes of the vicissitudes of life. Fasting is not done to manage our bodies, our lives or even God better, but to let go of that control and accept our radical helplessness. It creates the openness, the softening of the ego we need to receive what God wants to share with us; God’s self. During this time of penance and spiritual renewal, let us rediscover the deep meaning and the real purposes of fasting.[1]

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[1] Excerpt from Fr. Daniel Renaud’s reflection, “Rediscovering the Practice of Fasting.”

Jesus once said something that might be paraphrased this way: What does it profit you if you gain the whole world and are forever too much in a hurry and too pressured to enjoy it. When Jesus talks about gaining the whole world and suffering the loss of your own soul, he isn’t first of all referring to having a bad moral life, dying in sin, and going to hell. That’s the more radical warning in his message. We can lose our soul in other ways, even while we are good, dedicated, moral people. You can be someone who is very good, dedicated, moral, and kind. But if you struggle to be a soulful person, to be more inside the richness of your own life because when you live under constant pressure and are perennially forced to hurry, it isn’t easy to get up in the morning and say: “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice in it.” You are more likely to say: “Lord, just get me through this day!” As well, when Jesus tells us that it’s difficult for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, he isn’t just referring to material riches, money, and affluence, though these are contained in the warning. The problem can also be a rich agenda, a job or a passion that so consumes us that we rarely take the time (or even think of taking the time) to enjoy the beauty of a sunset or the fact that we are healthy and have the privilege of having a rich agenda. For many, this cycle of businesses can be broken through conscripted discipline of quiet prayer, regular walks, retreats, and several weeks of vacation each year. Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, was often too busy and pressured to find solitude. In search of that, he spent the last few years of his life in a hermitage, away from the main monastery except for Eucharist and the Office of the Church each day. Then, when he found solitude, he was surprised at how different it was from the way he had imagined it. “Today I am in solitude because, at this moment, it is enough to be in an ordinary human mode, with one’s hunger and sleep, one’s cold and warmth, rising and going to bed. Putting on blankets and taking them off, making coffee, and then drinking it. Defrosting the refrigerator, reading, meditating, working, praying. I live as my ancestors lived on this earth until eventually I die. Amen. There is no need to make an assertion about my life, especially so about it as mine …  I must learn to live so as to forget program and artifice.” When we are rich, busy, pressured, and preoccupied, it’s hard to taste one’s own coffee. Take time to breathe in the richness of God and his creation.[1]

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[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s reflection, “Being Rich and in a Hurry,” October 2024.

We begin the season of lent with ashes on our foreheads. What is symbolized by this smudging? Perhaps the heart understands better than the head because more people go to church on Ash Wednesday than on any other day of the year, including Christmas. The queues to receive the ashes in many churches are endless. Why? Why are the ashes so popular? Their popularity, I suspect, comes from the fact that, as a symbol, they are blunt, primal, archetypal, and speak the language of the soul. Something inside each of us knows exactly why we take the ashes: “Dust thou art and into dust thou shalt return!” No doctor of metaphysics need explain this. Ashes are dust and dust is soil, humus; humanity and humility come from there. There is something innate to the human soul that knows that, every so often, one must make a journey of descent, be smudged, lose one’s luster, and wait while the ashes do their work. the story of Cinderella. There is a centuries-old, wisdom-tale that speaks about the value of ashes, and it comes from the story of Cinderella. Her name literally means: “The young girl who sits in the cinders, the ashes.” Moreover, as the tale makes plain, before the glass slipper is placed on her foot, before the beautiful gown, ball, dance, and marriage, there must first be a period of sitting in the cinders, of being smudged, of being humbled, and of waiting while a proper joy and consummation are being prepared. In the story of Cinderella there is a theology of lent. In ancient times they saw this act of siting in the ashes as perfectly normal, something everyone was called upon to do at one time or another. They simply let the person sit there, in the ashes, until one day he or she got up, washed the ashes off, and began again to live a regular life. The belief was that the ashes, that period of silent sitting, had done some important, unseen work inside of the person. You sat in the ashes for healing. The church taps into this deep well of wisdom when it puts ashes on our foreheads at the beginning of lent. Lent is a season for each of us to sit in the ashes, to spend our time, like Cinderella, working and sitting among the cinders of the fire – grieving what we’ve done wrong, renouncing the dance, refraining from the banquet, refusing to do business as usual, waiting while some silent growth takes place within us, and simply being still so that the ashes can do their work in us.[1]

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[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s reflection, “The Ashes of Lent” March 2000.

The Gospels tell us that God’s mercy is unlimited and unconditional, has no favorites, is equally solicitous for everyone’s happiness and salvation, and does not ration his gift of the Spirit. If that is true, then we need to ask ourselves why we so frequently tend to withhold God’s Spirit from others in our judgments – particularly in our religious judgments. For example, how prone are we to think this way? For my religion to be true, it’s important to me that other religions are not true! For my Christian denomination to be faithful to Christ, it’s important that all the other denominations be considered less faithful. For the Eucharist in my denomination to be valid, it’s important that the Eucharist in other denominations be invalid or less valid. And, since I’m living a certain sustained fidelity in my faith and moral life, it’s important to me that everyone else who isn’t living as faithfully does not get to heaven or is assigned to a secondary place in heaven. One of the core values held by a certain group of Quakers is something they call generous orthodoxy. I like the combination of those two words. Generosity speaks of openness, hospitality, empathy, wide tolerance, and of sacrificing some of ourselves for others. Orthodoxy speaks of certain non-negotiable truths, of keeping proper boundaries, of staying true to what you believe, and of not compromising truth for the sake of being nice. These two are often pitted against each other as opposites, but they are meant to be together. Holding ground on our truth, keeping proper boundaries, and refusing to compromise even at the risk of not being nice is one side of the equation. Still, the full equation requires us to be also fully respectful and gracious regarding other people’s truth, cherished beliefs, and boundaries. Hence, you can be a Christian, convinced that Christianity is the truest expression of religion in the world, without judging that other religions are false. You can be a Roman Catholic, convinced that Roman Catholicism is the truest and fullest expression of Christianity, and your Eucharist is the real presence of Jesus, without making the judgment that other Christian denominations are not valid expressions of Christ and do not have a valid Eucharist. There’s no contradiction there.  You can be right without that being contingent on everyone else being wrong.[1]

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[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s reflection, “Generous Orthodoxy,” April 2023.

If someone didn’t believe in God and had no faith or religion, what would give meaning to their life? Where can we go if we no longer have an explicit faith in God? A lot of places, it seems. There’s a stoicism which offers its own kind of salvation by drawing life and meaning simply from fighting chaos and disease for no other reason than that that these cause suffering and are an affront to life, just as there is an Epicureanism that meaningfully grounds life in elemental pleasure. There are, it would seem, different kinds of saints. There are also different kinds of immortality. For some, meaning outside of an explicit faith, is found in leaving a lasting legacy on this earth, having children, achieving something monumental, or becoming a household name. We’re all familiar with the axiom: Plant a tree; write a book; have a child! Poets, writers, artists, and artisans often have their own place to find meaning outside of explicit faith. For them, creativity and beauty can be ends in themselves. Art for art’s sake. Creativity itself can seem enough. And there are still others for whom deep meaning is found simply in being good for its own sake and in being honest for its own sake. There’s also virtue for virtue’s sake and virtue is indeed its own reward. Simply living an honest and generous life can provide sufficient meaning with which to walk through life. So, it appears that there are places to go outside of explicit faith where one can find deep meaning. But is this really so? Don’t we believe that true meaning can only be found in God? What about St. Augustine’s classic line? You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until the rest in you. Can anything other than faith and God really quiet the restless fires within us? Christian theology tells us that God is One, True, Good, and Beautiful. And so, when an artist gives herself over to creating beauty, when a couple has a child, when scientists work to find cures for various diseases, when artisans make an artifact, when builders build, when teachers teach, when parents parent, when athletes play a game, when manual laborers labor, when administrators administrate, and, yes, even when hedonists drink deeply of earthily pleasure, they are, all of them, whether they have explicit faith or not, acting in some faith because they are putting their trust in either the Oneness, Truth, Goodness, or Beauty of God. As we can see, by simply looking at the amount of positive energy, love, creativity, generosity, and honesty that still fill our world, those places where people are seeking God outside of explicit faith still has them meeting God.[1]

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[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s reflection, “To Whom Can We Go?,” June 2017.